E3 Makes Me Really Appreciate the PAX Ban on Booth Babes

The Penny Arcade gang aren’t exactly known for their tactful and effective approach to gender relations. But PAX, on both coasts, does do one thing right: they forbid exhibitors from hiring scantily clad models who don’t know anything about the products just to attract visitors. In other words: no booth babes. Now, many of the…

Why Star Wars 1313 Doesn’t Let You Be a Jedi

Don’t get too attached to the guy you see shooting blasters and jumping from ship in Star Wars 1313‘s screenshots and videos. He’s just a placeholder character plopped into place for the purposes of the game’s unveiling. LucasArts isn’t divulging very much about the story or characters in the just-revealed Star Wars 1313, but creative…

A Woman Stole My Face Using a Kinect. That Was Disturbing.

The upcoming “Trading Faces” app for the Xbox 360 is more creepy than cool, but still a funny demonstration of what Microsoft’s hands-free Kinect sensor can do. “Trading Faces” will be added as a downloadable Kinect Fun Labs program some time in the future. No release date. At least she didn’t turn into a zombie!…

Narcoterror, A Love Letter to 80s Action Games in Three Parts

Your child, mistaken for a senator’s daughter, is kidnapped by the cartels. So many great 80’s action movies and video games have sprouted from similar plot lines. Rubicon’s Narcoterror is at least three of them. As I began my visit to the Rubicon Organization’s E3 2012 meeting space I was placed in a chair in…

Wreck-It Ralph‘s New Trailer Features Bowser, Dr. Robotnik, Zangief, Q*Bert and More

We previously reported that Disney’s Wreck-It Ralph would feature cameos of iconic video game villains, but seeing them in an actual trailer is something different. After watching this, I can’t wait for this film to be released. It looks like it could be the greatest video game-related movie ever made.

E3 2012? No Sir, It’s Adventure Time

How big is Pendleton Ward’s instant cult classic cartoon Adventure Time? So big that D3Publishers has a giant inflatable Finn and Jake hovering over their E3 2012 booth — and the game isn’t even here. And you know what? I don’t particularly care that

Look, Just Forget About a Baseball Game on the Xbox 360 Next Year

The long, slow goodbye to Major League Baseball 2K has been widely expected for more than a year. Gamers therefore assumed that EA Sports—frankly the only publisher with shoulders broad enough to take on this kind of a job right now—would jump back in with MVP Baseball (pictured). You can forget about that happening anytime…

Crossbows and Vampire Lords in Dawnguard Look Amazing in Action

If you were excited about Dawnguard, Skyrim‘s first piece of DLC, before, wait until you see it in action. The video shows you the vampire lord transformation and a ton of the skills that come with it, including summoning a gargoyle, using “vampiric grip” to lift enemies in the air, melee attacks and shooting energy…

Nintendo’s Reggie Fils-Aime Joins The Ranks of the Undead

At yesterday’s Nintendo press conference, president of Nintendo America Reggie Fils-Aime revealed himself to be a rotting, stinking monstrosity. And then, he used the Wii’s augmented reality to make himself look like a zombie! [Rimshot] Above, you can see Reggie demonstrating the Wii U’s AR abilities tied to the Ubisoft Wii U exclusive ZombiU. (Which,…

The Sony and Microsoft E3 Murder Report

This year, Sony and Microsoft’s E3 presentations contained a combined 218 on-screen deaths, according to The Gameological Society. Of course, no one was really murdered at the E3 briefings. That is a relief.

Halo 4 Creators are Prepping for a Halo Comeback

Halo used to the biggest thing in multiplayer Xbox gaming. It’s still a big deal, but for the last half-decade, Call of Duty has been the Xbox’s main event. At E3 this year, new Microsoft-owned development studio 343 Industries is making an interactive case that Halo is ready for top status again. They’re not saying…

Pikmin 3 Plays Well, But I’m Not Sure Which Controller is Best For It

I finally played a new Pikmin game yesterday, which I’ve been waiting to do for eight years. The game looks great, but the tiny sliver I played got me wondering what the best way to play the game will be. Pikmin 3, like the GameCube Pikmin games before it, is about playing as a tiny…

Narco Terror Screens

Everything You Should Know About The Vulgar, Wonderful South Park RPG

Next-gen graphics? Innovative controls? Nonsense. The best thing I’ve seen at E3 so far is a video game based on an animated TV show. Likely you’ve heard of South Park, the immensely popular, surprisingly insightful, almost-always-hilarious Comedy Central cartoon by Trey Parker and Matt Stone. You may have even played one of the old Acclaim-published…

These New Aliens: Colonial Marines Screenshots Will Make You Drool

Hot off the e-presses, here’s four new screenshots from Aliens: Colonial Marines for your viewing pleasure. In the images, we get a glimpse of two aliens, a look at iron sights in action, and a peek at what the multiplayer lobby looks like. Aliens: Colonial Marines is due out February 12 for PC, Xbox 360,…

Who Is Our Mystery Microsoft Interviewee? [UPDATE]

Among the batch of interviews we have lined up for E3 with top game developers and captains of industry, we have a mystery interview today with someone important in the world of Xbox. Who could this mystery man or woman be? Microsoft won’t tell us, so we will leave it to you readers to speculate:…

Hawken is Everything I Ever Wanted in a Mech Shooter

For more than a year now Adhesive Games’ indie PC mech shooter Hawken has tantalized us with breathtakingly gorgeous scenes of giant robot carnage amidst dystopian cityscapes that combine anime sensibilities with Moebius-level intricacy and detail. The aesthetic has won us over time and time again, but what of the gameplay? It’s even better. My…

Why the Wii U Literally Can’t Stand Up

Unlike a Wii, an Xbox 360 or a PlayStation 3, the Wii U console can’t stand up. You can’t prop the system up vertically without it falling over. Horizontal is the only option. The new Nintendo console must lie on its belly like a Nintendo Entertainment System or a really lazy house cat Why? “I…

Carmack Being Carmack: A Dozen Minutes With One of Video Game’s Smartest People

There is nothing quite like having John Carmack tell you about a technological breakthrough that excited him. The id Software programming genius who co-created Doom and launches rockets in his spare time will just unload on you. And—this is flattering—he will assume you can keep up. Yesterday at E3 in Los Angeles, I pretty much…

Sizing Up Its Competition, NBA 2K13 Will Stick to the Way It Plays the Game

Let’s go ahead and say it: NBA 2K13 is right back where it was two years ago—locked in the only meaningful head-to-head competition in sports video game publishing. It’s a fight it won quite decisively, too, when its competitor failed to launch and then sat out 2011, while NBA 2K turned in its two best…